Costa Mesa should adopt new rules for public hearings and some permits, planners recommend

The Costa Mesa Planning Commission endorsed a proposal Monday to expand the notice provided for public hearings and require that additional information be submitted as part of discretionary applications.

On a 4-0 vote, with Chairman Stephan Andranian absent, the commission recommended the City Council officially adopt the new rules at a future meeting.

The changes stem from a set of new regulations the council adopted last month related to group and sober-living homes.

Those include a requirement that the city provide notice to all owners and occupants of properties within 500 feet of a site where someone has applied to open a group or sober-living home in a residential area.

Applicants must also now fully disclose the ownership interests of those facilities, as well as whether they’ve held a similar license or permit and whether it was ever suspended or revoked.

Should the council adopt the commission’s recommendation, those additional requirements would now apply to all discretionary applications filed with the city — such as for special use and conditional-use permits, master plans and other land-use requests.

“This information on permit history will be particularly helpful when applications for business types that have the potential to create impacts on the surrounding neighborhood are submitted — such as, for instance, a nightclub,” Sheri Vander Dussen, interim assistant director of the city’s Development Services Department, said Monday.

The changes will create consistency and “ensure that everyone living or conducting business near a property that is the subject of a public hearing will have the opportunity to become more informed about the application and participate in the decision-making process,” according to a city staff report.

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